DFA: Rape-slay convict Larrañaga now in Spain

(Updated 5:59 p.m.) Convicted killer-rapist Juan Francisco "Paco" Larrañaga arrived in Madrid before dawn Wednesday (Manila time) and was transferred to a maximum security Spanish prison, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said. The DFA said Larrañaga - convicted in 2004 along with six others for raping and killing sisters Jacqueline and Marijoy Chiong in 1997 in Cebu City - arrived at the Madrid Barajas International Airport at 11:34 p.m. Tuesday (5:34 a.m. Wednesday) via Amsterdam. "Still under escort by Spanish Police officers, he was brought to the National Police station at the airport’s Terminal T4 and then taken to the Central Registry in Moratalaz, where his fingerprints and other data were taken," the DFA said, citing a report from the Philippine Embassy in Madrid. Larrañaga, who has a dual Filipino and Spanish citizenship, was accompanied by Spanish National Police Interpol officers who took custody of him at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) when he left the country Tuesday morning. He will be detained at the Centro Penitenciario Madrid 5 in Soto del Real, which the DFA said is a "maximum security prison." "There, he will continue to serve the sentence imposed by a Philippine court," the DFA said, adding that the Spanish government has assured the Philippine government that there would be no conversion of the sentence imposed by the Philippine court on Larrañaga. The DFA also said it had instructed the Philippine Embassy to closely monitor Larrañaga’s imprisonment in Spain "to ensure that the terms of the sentence imposed on him in the Philippines will be observed." The transfer was in accordance with the RP-Spain Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement (TSPA). It earned controversy when the victims' mother, Thelma Chiong, protested that she was not informed beforehand that one of her daughters' killers would be moved to Spain. The 32-year-old Larrañaga is the son of former Basque pelotari Manuel Larrañaga and Margarita Gonzalez, granddaughter of the late President Sergio Osmeña Sr. and a cousin of former senator Sergio Osmeña III. He has family members in the Guipuzcoa and Catalonia areas in Spain. Filipino prisoners Meanwhile, two Filipino prisoners languishing in Spanish jails might finish serving their terms in the Philippines after they invoked TSPA. Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ed Malaya told GMANews.TV that they are working on the transfer of the two prisoners who were serving time on drug-trafficking charges. Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera told GMANews.TV earlier that he two prisoners might not be transferred as soon as Larrañaga because they have not yet submitted documents required under the treaty. She said the two must be able to show that there is already a final decision on their cases and they consented to the transfer and paid all the necessary civil liabilities in Spain . “The pace of processing would depend on the pace of submission," Devanadera said. Aside from Spain, the Philippines has entered into similar treaties involving sentenced persons with Hong Kong, Cuba, Thailand, and Canada, which limits the power of granting pardon, amnesty, or commutation to sentencing states. The Philippines is now aggressively lobbying for similar treaties in the Middle East where 57 more overseas Filipino workers are on death row, according to DFA Secretary Alberto Romulo. - GMANews.TV